Tag Archives: ACA

Healthcare’s Evolution

by
Jacqueline Hodge - ProModel Director of Healthcare Initiatives

Jacqueline Hodge – ProModel Director of Healthcare Initiatives

Ever heard the phrase:  “Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll keep getting what you’re getting”?  My Mom used to say that to me all the time and I still think about it today.  I’ve been in the healthcare industry my entire life and, needless to say, a career that has never had a dull moment.  Change is the only constant in healthcare today.

 Healthcare is a place for those who don’t shy away from change and can embrace new ideas even when they are not popular.  Many of the decisions made in healthcare are based on intuition, gut feelings, experience, and consensus. I’ve been a part of those think tanks and times have changed… information resources have changed…                                                           technology has changed… expectations have changed!

Our hospitals have been tasked to do more with less – who hasn’t heard that right?  Through innovative technologies like simulation, we can use predictive analytics to visualize, analyze, and optimize processes.  We have to identify the bottlenecks in our systems that are affecting patient outcomes, patient wait times, correct bed placement and optimal staffing.  Variability in patient flow through our healthcare systems is an impediment to the cost reductions and improvement of patient safety and quality of care (Litvak et al).

Systems have been slowly adopting the principles learned through lean and six sigma but have slow to adapt to the tools available.  Hospitals have shifted from revenue generating to cost reduction.  Simulation tools are the next step in healthcare’s evolution to impact costs due to healthcare’s unique challenges caused by variability due to competition for patient beds, resources, and patient throughput — all are a part of the ongoing challenge we face to meet expectations for ‘doing more with less”

About Jacqueline Hodge

Jacqueline has had the privilege of being part of the healthcare industry for the past 25 years in Arizona after moving from Nashville, TN.  She has served in numerous roles throughout her healthcare career including medical technologist, business development executive and hospital CEO.

Prior to joining ProModel, Jacqueline was the CEO of Promise Hospital Phoenix where she provided strategic leadership to all clinical operations.  She established and executed goals that directly impacted hospital operations, patient care, physician development and business growth.  Having been a CEO, Jacqueline knows the immeasurable value that simulation technology brings to hospital operations. She was able to make leadership decisions quickly by analyzing internal data in its virtual environment with the ability to focus on both high level strategic initiatives and day to day operational tactics.

At Promise Hospital Jacqueline previously served as their VP of Business Development where she led physician development, contracting, and sales/marketing.  Before her time at Promise, she was the Area Business Director for Kindred Healthcare responsible for 4 hospitals within the Arizona market. Jacqueline also has global pharmaceutical experience in Scientific Affairs and Business Development leadership roles including Bayer Healthcare and Astellas Pharma US.

Jacqueline holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology from Murray State University.  She also holds an ASCP Medical Technology Certification from St. Mary’s Hospital, and has worked as a Medical Technologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center at the start of her career.

NEW! ProModel’s Patient Flow Solution:

http://patientflowstudio.com/

ProModel Healthcare Solutions:

http://www.promodel.com/Industries/Healthcare

Healthcare Guest Blog from Array Architects

by

Co-Authors:

Florangela Papa, LEED AP – Project Architect and Planner, Array Architects

Ryan Keszczyk – Intern Architect, Array Architects

Array Logo Lockup-Inline_CMYK-01We are Healthcare Architects.  When designing for the healthcare industry, we must respond to the increasing complexity of demands and restrictions based on spacing limitations, budgets, and resources.  As our healthcare clients adapt to their changing needs and experience a shift in operations and process, we needed to find a way to use real-time information and data to generate both tangible and quantifiable statistics that could be used to steer design.  These criteria led us to search for new tools that would allow us to analyze this data in a way that could improve our design process.  Simulation modeling is a tool that has drastically impacted the design process, increasing the value, flexibility, and quality of our designs while staying within the confines and restrictions of each individual project.  The once static historical data on spreadsheets and charts can now be analyzed in a visually dynamic way.  Using this technology we are able to visually see system bottlenecks and flawed areas of the process that have the most potential to improve the design, all in a virtual environment, before the project is too far along in the design process.  With simulation we can:

-Analyze existing conditions and identify areas within the project scope that need development and offer the most value and improvement to the facility.

-Create project specific analyses and solutions that become the guiding force of a design, rather than using standard baseline benchmarks.

-Identify and analyze system flows and processes that can be improved with the introduction of lean design practices.

-Quickly test different scenarios which give the client the ability to weigh the outcomes and make an informed and confident decision.

Simulation modeling is used in early stages of design to influence programmatic developments.  For example, using simulation modeling we are able to specifically calculate the number of patient rooms a department may need to minimize wait time and further improve quality of care.  Through the modeling process we are able to ensure that the critical elements are precise, not just for a typical day, but have the ability to perform in  “worst case scenario” circumstances.   With the broad scope of a project determined, modeling can be used at a focused scale to evaluate the inter-dependencies of individual elements within the system and influence the design accordingly (i.e. patient room flow, nurse station flow, etc.)

Simulation Modeling is often considered both an art and a science.  Models can be developed to produce extremely rigorous and complex systems, but also need to strike the right balance of simplicity and usefulness.  As architects we needed a simple tool that could give us the benefits of simulation, without requiring too extensive of a statistics and engineering expertise – this isn’t our strength, nor is it how we are compensated.  After evaluating different software, Array selected ProModel’s Process Simulator because:

– It has a user-friendly interface with visually dynamic graphics.

– ProModel offers effective training and tutorials backed by great technical support

– There is a variety of graphics (graphs, charts, histograms, time plots) that are easily customizable to meet the needs of the project through the output viewer.

– The software has the ability to create simple or complex models, which allows the flexibility to model for a variety of project types.  We are able manage many projects on our own, but can also team with ProModel’s experts as we tackle more complex problems.